Women, Power, and Property

Rachel Brulé is Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University. She specializes in comparative politics​, the political economy of development, gender, ​South Asia, representation, ​inequality, and migration.

• 1. Introduction; 2. A theory of political representation and economic agency; 3. Property and power: a political history of the Hindu joint family; 4. Where are the women? Investigating reform's roots; 5. The politics of property rights enforcement; 6. The long arm of resistance: refusal to care for parents; 7. Representation and violence: gender equality and sex selection; 8. Conclusion.

'In this powerful and subtle book, Rachel Brulé combs through an array of micro-level data for clues regarding the causes of and obstacles to gender inequality in India. One of her most stunning findings is that femicide actually increases when gender-equal inheritance laws are enforced – unless families are freed from the expectation that a daughter's property is forfeited to in-laws upon marriage. This book is a triumph of social science and a model for empirical scholarship on gender.' Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Yale University, Connecticut